The Best Actress race is mostly settled. Jessie Buckley’s transformative, brilliant performance in Hamnet is the performance of the year. That certainly seems to be the case right now. But there is most definitely a theme that runs through all of the most prominent contenders in the race, as least as most of us see it now, which may or may not be seeing actual reality. We tend to form a hive mind and circle around group think to come up with our ideal list of both what will happen and what should happen.
So far, the only performance I’ve seen by one of our agreed-upon frontrunners that isn’t in serious emotional turmoil would be the genius work of Emma Stone in Bugonia. I plan to write a longer piece on that film, which I loved, but the long and short of it is that Stone plays a super being who is evolved enough to see herself as someone who can “fix” humanity. And of course, humanity can’t be fixed. We are a lost cause, to hilarious effect in this clever and insightful film.
Stone must play an alien pretending to be a “you go girl” feminist icon. But she is also playing the alien and must always keep one card to herself. Once you’ve seen it and can wind back to the beginning to watch it again, an entirely different movie opens up. I didn’t realize what the film was about until I was startled awake at 3am. Then it hit me. I won’t spoil it now but in my opinion, Bugonia is up there with Eddington (Ari Aster is involved in both) as films that reflect what is happening in our culture now in subversive ways that will be uncomfortable to some today, but looking back, 20 years from now, many will see that they were among the few that told the truth.
Emma Stone is what some might call “on the bubble,” and whether a large consensus of thousands will understand what Bugonia is really about, and whether they have the ability to think critically about these times we’re through, remains to be seen. Both Eddington and Bugonia should land in the screenplay categories because they are among the best writing of this year.
Both Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone should be nominated. Will they be? It’s an open question that depends on those who live in the bubble and whether they can yet see beyond it. If they can’t, it’s One Battle After Another all the way. If they can, it might turn out differently.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a leading actress’ performance that doesn’t involve screaming and, in some cases, caterwauling. The two that immediately come to mind are Jennifer Lawrence in Die My Love and Rose Byrne in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Both of these movies seem to be almost abusive to their viewers — a female barbaric yawp of sorts that will probably alienate voters, I figure, especially the men. Are they good performances? I suppose, but where do they take us beyond vibing with a woman’s existential angst and pain of being mothers and feeling oppressed?
A dirty smear campaign has been waged against Hamnet that calls Jessie Buckley’s performance “grief porn,” which is, I think a conclusion that only a stupid person would make, no offense. I mean, sorry I don’t mean to be rude or anything – or maybe I do – but that’s a silly way to look at a movie that is taking you somewhere. It’s a buildup to a catharsis. The deeper the grief, the higher the reward. It’s like the first time I saw E.T. and we all thought E.T. died. We were sobbing hysterically, but then E.T. lives, and we’re euphoric.
It isn’t that Shakespeare’s on Hamnet lives again literally, but he lives again in art, and that, as it turns out, is how Shakespeare in this film expresses his grief at not only losing a song but not being there to help his wife through the pain of it.
Grief porn? That would be Die My Love or If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. When the only thing that matters in the movie is a woman screaming or showcasing her pain but it takes you nowhere except asks you to marinate in that pain, that is grief porn. That doesn’t make them bad movies, but they are movies by and about women where the women are going overboard with their own self-indulgent suffering. I’m not sure whether voters will respond to that.
Jessie Buckley, by contrast, is living through an experience that would be emotionally difficult for any mother, not selfish mothers who whine and cry about being mothers but real mothers whose entire life is about their kids. Buckley’s Agness felt responsible for her children, as any good mother would. She thought the girl’s twin, the sickly one, would die, so she over-protected her. But then, when it was the son instead, it caught her off guard. She was known as the town healer — their version of what a doctor would be — and she felt she could not save her son, that it was within her power to do so.
That’s not grief porn, you daft fools. That’s actual grief. Maybe you have to be a parent to hold your vulnerable baby in your arms and know that you’d do anything to protect them, to save them, to keep them alive, to really get this movie. If you have lived your life only for yourself and your own needs, then your grief can be considered grief porn.
But let’s look at the contenders and see where we are. Here is the contender list from the award expert app:
Rose Byrne and Jennifer Lawrence are hovering and ranked above Kate Hudson, Julia Roberts, and Sydney Sweeney, which seems to suggest that “misery porn” is all the rage, at least among those who think their performances are worthy. Chase Infinity does have a moment of screaming at the end of One Battle, where she can only see Leonardo DiCaprio as yet another white man who wants to kill her, but her performance is not what one might call “misery porn.” So I half wonder if she doesn’t take the fifth slot for that reason alone.
Renate Reinsve plays a character struggling with her own mental health, but the trick with playing that kind of character is to show them trying to hold it back. It is the struggle to keep it together that often makes for the most fascinating showcase performance of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. By contrast, Buckley’s Agnes is under no such obligation since she doesn’t live in a world that expects her to maintain her composure, especially when alone in the forest.
Reinsve has her performance well in hand at the outset, as we watch her struggle with a panic attack before going on stage and all of the ways she tries to keep it all together because the show must go on. Her performance is fascinating because we are all watching and waiting to see if the glass vase tips off the mantle, and thankfully, as with Hamnet, she is rescued by art at the end of Sentimental Value, one of the best films of the year.
Cynthia Erivo will not be a woman falling apart or having a nervous breakdown in Wicked. She is the empowered female who is heroic in her efforts to confront the fascist regime, I figure. But her singing alone should guarantee her a spot in the top five, unless the rumors are true that it’s a supporting part in this version, where Ariana Grande is lead (though put in supporting).
The wild card here is Amanda Seyfried, about whom Alfred Castaneda wrote, “This is the best performance of Amanda Seyfried’s career: an electrifying blend of her musicality from Mamma Mia and Les Misérables with the neuroticism as Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from The Dropout.” Interesting!
And then, we have Sydney Sweeney, who has transformed herself into Christy. She gained 30 pounds for the role and is almost unrecognizable. The Film Twitter mob has its knives out, because of course they do. Totalitarians can’t stand it if people go against the strident rules they have laid out, and Sweeney is always breaking them. They are actively rooting for her failure and have talked more about how Christy bombed than they ever would admit about the other famous bombs in a season that could be dubbed One Bomb After Another.
I don’t want to hear it about who is gay and who is not because this is an industry that seems to celebrate non-gay men playing gay men (Blue Moon, etc) and punishes women for the same. Make it make sense. They are going after Sweeney because she does not apologize, nor does she virtue signal the way, say, Amanda Seyfried has done repeatedly, going after Trump supporters on her socials.
Why? Obviously, she and her husband are politically left and have no problem showcasing it. That will help her and hurt Sweeney when it comes to Oscar nominations, I figure. It annoys me about Seyfried – or any celebrity who lives like royalty, taking a dump on working-class Americans, then turning around and expecting them to buy tickets to see their movies. But whatever.
Put the two women together and you have The Housemaid, which is among my most anticipated. Seyfried has the meatier role, but Sweeney will be given a chance to showcase her hotness, which she doesn’t get to do in Christy. In the end, I think the Housemaid gives Seyfried a boost with Ann Lee.
Finally, there is Chase Infiniti in One Battle After Another. Her part is really supporting and not lead. They are putting her there to boost Teyana Taylor and Regina Hall, but her role is not complete and there is no character development. But she’s likable. And love for the movie might push her over the top. Identity in Hollywood now counts as character development among the critics, which might partly explain why there are so many white women losing their shit in these roles. They might need their own version of identity to fill in the gaps.
Where Best Actress is concerned, I always look at it in terms of these three factors:
- Likability of Actress
- Likability of Role
- Likability of Movie
It helps to have all three. But you can win without, even though we’ve seen the last few Best Actress winners having all three:
Mikey Madison, Anora (likeability of actress, likability of role, likability of movie)
Emma Stone, Poor Things (likeability of actress, likability of role, likability of movie)
Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All At Once (likeability of actress, likability of role, likability of movie).
Jessica Chastain, Eyes of Tammy Faye (likeability of actress, likability of role, not of movie).
Frances McDormand, Nomadland (likeability of actress, likability of role, likability of movie)
So, given all of this, I see the race this way.
- Jessie Buckley, Hamnet – undeniable and perhaps starring in this year’s Best Picture winner — likability of actress, likability of role, likability of movie
- Cynthia Erivo, Wicked: For Good – because Wicked will make lots of money, and she has a publicity push behind her — likability of actress, likability of role, likability of movie.
- Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value on her performance alone, which stands out. Likability of actress, likability of role, likability of movie.
- Emma Stone, Bugonia – because she’s a two-time Best Actress winner and because Bugonia is great, though not everyone sees it that way –Likability of actress, likability of role, MAYBE likability of movie.
- Chase Infiniti, One Battle After Another – likability of actress, likability of role, likability of movie.
- Amanda Seyfried, The Testament of Ann Lee, because of the performance, but also because of The Housemaid. Likability of actress – not sure about the rest.
- Jennifer Lawrence, Die My Love – only likability of actress.
- Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick you – only likability of actress.
- Julia Roberts, After the Hunt – only likability of actress.
- Sydney Sweeney, Christy – only likability of role (I like Sydney Sweeney but I’m talking about the voters here and they are bubble-dwelling types who are into cancel culture totalitarianism).
Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong. My only slight hesitation here is that fifth slot. Does Emma Stone get bumped and both Chase Infiniti and Amanda Seyfried make it in? Does Seyfried bump Infiniti? Not sure. But I think in Infiniti’s case, likability of movie will go a long way.
Here are my full predictions — which change almost every week. What can I say.
Best Picture
- Hamnet
- Sinners
- One Battle After Another
- Sentimental Value
- Frankenstein
- Wicked: For Good
- Marty Supreme
- Bugonia
- It Was Just An Accident
- Avatar: Fire and Ash
Best Director
- Chloé Zhao, Hamnet
- Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
- Ryan Coogler, Sinners
- Guillermo Del Toro, Frankenstein
- Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident
Alts: Yorgos Lanthimos, Bugonia; Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value, James Cameron, Avatar: Fire and Ash
Best Actress
Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
Cynthia Erivo, Wicked for Good
Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value
Emma Stone, Bugonia
Chase Infiniti, One Battle
On the bubble: Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Julia Roberts, After the Hunt
Best Actor
Timothée Chalament, Marty Supreme
Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another
Dwayne Johnson, The Smashing Machine
Michael B. Jordan, Sinners
Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon
Supporting Actress
Ariana Grande, Wicked for Good
Amy Madigan, Weapons
Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another
Elle Fanning, Sentimental Value
Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners
Supporting Actor
Paul Mescal, Hamnet
Stellan Skarsgård, Sentimental Value
Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein
Sean Penn, One Battle After Another
Jonathan Bailey, Wicked: For Good
Original Screenplay
Sinners
Eddington
It Was Just An Accident
Sentimental Value
Marty Supreme
Adapted Screenplay
One Battle After Another
Hamnet
The Life of Chuck
Frankenstein
Bugonia
Casting
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Wicked For Good
Hamnet
Bugonia
International Feature
Sentimental Value
The Secret Agent
No Other Choice
Sirat
The Voice of Hind Rajab
Editing
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Cinematography
Frankenstein
One Battle After Another
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Sinners
Hamnet
Production Design
Frankenstein
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Sinners
Wicked: For Good
Hamnet
Costume
Frankenstein
Sinners
Wicked: For Good
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Score
Sinners
Hamnet
One Battle After Another
Frankenstein
F1
Makeup and Hairstyling
Frankenstein
The Smashing Machine
Christy
Wicked: For Good
Sinners
Sound
Sinners
Avatar: Fire and Ash
F1
Wicked: For Good
One Battle After Another
